Have and Hold
by tami3
Summary: Allen, Lenalee, Lavi and Kanda become adults in thier changing world. Yet the war must go on, friends must die, and one must fall in love anyways. In the midst of fighting, they will have and hold. LaviKanda Friendship, AllenLenalee Romance. Part 2, Hold.
1. Have

Have

It was such a shame that she was an Exorcist, seeing as how she was a gorgeous young woman whose sinfully long and shapely legs would have made a spectacular display in a short, sparkly, fringed dress.

Then again, Lenalee's bust had grown all through her teen years and nothing short of a very hard-working strap could smooth down her figure now. She wondered who to ask for advice. There were no young women in the order, unless you counted Miranda, but her fashion sensibilities were still resolutely mired in the age of multiple petticoats and collars that buttoned all the way up the throat. The wallflower was terribly antiquated when she wasn't wearing her uniform, but it suited her somehow. Still alarmingly faint-of-heart despite the century turning, the poor thing was having a hard time adjusting to the insanity "winning" the war had wrought upon the world.

The first long, drawn-out akuma war had ended with a shaky bang. The known Noahs ended up as confirmed kills. The Earl went AWOL and was presumed to be lying low, now that his most useful acolytes were stashed in the science department's morgue. Akuma, even level three ones, still drifted around, but were believed to be leftovers.

All in all, things were not really resolved. But there had been victory, and subsequent peace. The world had seen itself unravel and then get held together by a shadowy organization, all in a time when modesty was considered best. It was quite at a loss what to do with itself afterwards.

Crazy dancing and excessive drinking parties had seemed to be the natural solution.

This new age dawned on Lenalee Lee as a spectacularly beautiful woman, sitting to breakfast with her guy friends, posing an unusual question to them.

Lavi hemmed and hawed, resting his chin on his fist as he weighed the obvious appeal of an unchecked full figure with the slimming current style. As an adult, Lavi was smolderingly handsome. The mischief of his cat's green eyes had deepened to a dangerous, enigmatic clarity, like the rim of an absinthe bottle.

He had been a boyish flirt when he first came to the Order, all talk and no action (typical eighteen-year-old). Now that he was legal, his dalliances with the ladies in smoky bar scenes kept him out late and often. To the extreme annoyance of the Tower custodians in charge of security, the bar scene would sometimes trail Lavi back to the tower in the form of a slender, smirking girl with heavily lined eyes, leaning on his arm.

Allen, Lavi's best friend, sat next him. All the extroverted friends in the world couldn't kill his natural shyness. At Lenalee's question his face flushed red and he stammered something incoherently about her being pretty no matter what she did with herself.

In a nervous tic he flicked his pale hair away from his cursed eye. He'd kept it long to hide the pentacle. The symbol was now taboo in public, so he thought he might as well, but there were not many people who didn't recognize the war hero when they saw him. Allen had the same kind of half-grown good looks Lavi and Kanda had sported once. Even though he was a bit beyond that age, that was where his features had settled.

Allen was also slow in the emotional maturity department. He'd nursed a blatant crush on Lenalee since they'd met as kids. She was patiently and respectfully waiting on him. Allen was still the type to die of humiliation if the girl made the first move.

But, as Lavi impatiently pointed out, times were a-changing. Besides, if she didn't want to be cooped up like an old maid while Allen worked up his nerve, wouldn't she like to come to the club with him? She'd accepted, to Lavi's undisguised surprise, and then promptly dragged Allen along on the "friends' outing".

Lavi gloomily came to terms with his rejection over several strong drinks while Allen spent the rest of the evening being terrorized by bold, sequined flappers calling on him to gyrate with them on the dance floor.

Lenalee had serenely sipped on a strawberry daiquiri as she looked on, thoughtfully wondering if she could make the look work for herself and if Allen would like it so long as she wasn't too flashy about it. But she kind of liked the daring of it, outspoken-ness and getting your chest bound…

But when she brought it up, it was (funnily enough) Kanda who answered her.

Kanda, Lavi's other best friend and Allen's ally-enemy, had mellowed out from his long, painful phase of extreme arrogance and extreme violence. His teenaged hair-trigger temper and stab-happy hands had kept the Order sobbing at the fickle outbursts of a twelve-year-old (and fifteen-year-old's, and eighteen-year-old's, and twenty)…but finally he no longer sicced nightmare creatures on people who tried to help him.

He never became good-natured. Somewhere along the line his adult dignity simply overrode his conspicuous rage. He was longer irked by petty acquaintances like the Finders. He reserved that for close friends, to their complete and absolute horror.

Like a true poetic Japanese warrior, he became elegant in his wrath. Without a single angry word or any of them seeing, when the handle of Lavi's fork inched a bit too close to Kanda's plate, it dissembled into six evenly cut metal tabs half a centimeter above Lavi's hand. They all shifted a bit further away from him on their cafeteria benches.

They'd all gotten better, but Kanda and his Mugen were worthy of legend status. Besides that, his near-lethal eighteen-year-old beauty had at one point decided to be fair to the rest of humanity, or at least reasonable. As he continued to grow and train, it softened slightly as his chest widened and face became more masculine.

People stopped regularly confusing him with a beautiful warrior woman. They did it occasionally instead. Kanda kept his irritation quiet, but started wearing the front of his shirt open so his well-defined pecs did the explaining. There was quite a bite excitement among the females in the Order, but as Kanda really did look more like a (male) samurai that way, it died down and just became part of his natural look. From then on, he felt he could afford fancier hair ties with traditional knots and once a while, a patterned obi. Embroidered storks and the color red suited him. People got it. No breasts equaled man.

He was still stubbornly asexual though, resisting both Lavi's joking advances and townswomen's serious ones. The same long ponytail jerked on his back as he looked Lenalee's voluptuous figure up and down without the least bit of a leer.

"You are unusually developed for an Asian woman, aren't you?" he asked her thoughtfully. "Don't bind your chest though, that will limit your movement."

"And how would you know that, Yuu-chan? Wait, wait! Don't tell me you've been a smoking hot babe all this time and flattening your rack to hide it! I knew it!" Lavi threw a lascivious wink in his direction. Then he playfully drew closer as he mock-whispered to be completely audible: "Of course, you'd still be a smoking hot babe even if that weren't true."

A thin line of red of mysterious origin appeared on Lavi's collarbone and the necklace he had been wearing dropped onto the table with a clink.

Allen rolled his eyes rather grumpily. He wasn't happy with Kanda nicking their mutual best friend or talking about the breasts of the girl he liked. No one else saw it as a very big deal, though.

"What's there to like about him?" Allen grouched once to Lavi. Allen was a good kid who had become a good man, so for the most part he held his tongue on what he thought about other people. Kanda pushed his buttons though. It wasn't hard, with the snooty beauty taking up a fair amount of Lavi's friendliness and his lovely high-heeled Exorcist's attention. Lavi sincerely liked him and Lenalee seemed to have an almost sisterly rapport with him. Kanda didn't seem to treasure either in the least, which was only more of an aggravation for Allen.

Lavi replied laughingly, "Nothing, for you. He's been a jerk to you from the start and he decided to be an even greater jerk by keeping it up for no reason. But the person Yuu shows to you isn't the person he shows to me." With extreme talent, Lavi willed a glint to his eye: "Plus…he's so damned pretty! Prettiest thing in the Order, tied with Lenalee."

"Is he?" Allen was unfazed by Lavi's oh-so-unsubtle sexual overtones. He crossed his arms in stubborn resistance. "I don't know, I always thought he was like one of those self-absorbed high-maintenance women."

"You saying Yuu's a diva, Allen?"

"Yeah, I guess. And just what are these good traits I don't know about but you do? He still insults you all the time."

Lavi shrugged and gave Allen a toothy grin.

"I dunno then, go ask Lenalee then. He's REAL sweet to her, if you get my meaning."

"What?!" confused Allen nipped off to either find Kanda and fume silently in his presence, annoying him, or Lenalee and mope silently in hers, worrying her. Lavi knew poor Allen's "secret" affection would keep him quiet and bothered in either case. He stalked off whistling. Grown or not, Lavi was still a troublemaker.

"Baka-usagi." Kanda retorted with well-checked ire. "Muscle or breasts, it doesn't matter. There's pressure either way."

"All my movement's in my feet, Kanda." Lenalee smiled.

He raised one wry eyebrow. "You breathe with your lungs. The less air you get the slower you are."

"Does it really make that much of a difference?"

"Yes." He spoke impassively. The bandages he wore to disguise the hated marks were always visible now, but they seeped out onto his upper arm, which could not be covered. "It does."

In the end, it didn't matter because Lenalee never got to try on the short, spangled dresses for flat-chested girls that had tempted her.

She was an exorcist, and had to wear her coat.

---

There was one other big thing about her appearance that bothered Lenalee. After losing her hair at sea, she had grown it back all the way down to her knees and put it into the cross clips. But she was much too old for pigtails now and many times before she had thought about cropping it into short waves, which was the in look right now.

Komui had never approved. He attached herself to her leg and bawled when she tried to go into town to see a hairdresser. She'd gritted her teeth and tugged him along anyways. She made it as far as the front gate that way, scooting her brother along on the floor one step at a time. Reever had intercepted her there and politely requested that she humor Komui for the sake of his sanity and the science department's. Komui was sure to be completely useless for weeks after if his dear sister lost her "most beautiful hair in the world" again.

Komui was going to be sad, if she ever found him again. When she got blasted in the back her hair got scorched off to waist length. She was grateful she'd listened to Kanda and had all the breath in the world to jet away as fast as she could.

He was waiting for her on the highest rock of the hill like he said he would. His own long, intact hair whipped behind him in the wind, getting entangled with those beautiful Japanese cords he used to hold it up. There was a pile of lower-level akuma at the base. He looked like an illustration out of a picture book, the noble feudal swordsman who would vanquish the evil spirits by dawn.

She crash-landed into him, nearly headfirst. He turned her in midair so she wouldn't break her neck against his ribs. She could feel her spine being pushed up by his hands as he carefully repositioned of her wounded body to sling her safely in his arms. It all went to waste because as soon as he was ready to carry her away comfortably, she flailed so hard she fell out his hold.

Her nose slammed into his hard chest. Two delicate trails of blood trickled out of her nostrils and her head shot backward. Kanda was afraid that she would crack her skull and tried to grab her wrist, but her hands seized the lapels of his coat.

Her eyes were wild and unfocused. Her entire frame shook as she held on.

"I lost Miranda!" she screamed hysterically.

It took Kanda several full seconds to remember whom Lenalee was talking about. Miranda Lotte was the frazzled, clueless woman that dressed like a frumpy old doll, but had the highly useful ability to turn back time. She was one of the senior Exorcists, one whose debut had dated from before the end of the first war—one of the ones who should have known what to do when the alarm sounded.

"What do you mean?

"I mean…I lost her! I was flying her, and we were attacked and I was hurt, and Miranda invocated her innocence to keep me going, but an akuma rammed me, and I dropped her, so I dove after her, but I got dizzy and all my wounds came back even though I couldn't have been that far from her, and I couldn't find her again, but they were still after me and I had to keep going and MY GOD KANDA I LOST HER!" Lenalee shrieked.

Kanda pried her clenched fists off and forced Lenalee to sit. He knelt beside her as she held her head in her hands, her pupils dilated.

"Are you trying to say that she died?"

"NO! I DROPPED HER! I LOST HER! I LOST MIRANDA! MIRANDA!!"

Kanda shook her roughly.

"Enough, Lenalee! This not a tragedy about some rookie dying because she did not know what she was doing! Miranda was fighting like she was supposed to, do you understand? Unlike those children, Miranda is a veteran with years of experience. Either she will win as an exorcist and retort back to us, or her contribution to this war, invaluable as it was, has come to an end. That is all! And that is enough!"

At the word "children," Lenalee's eyes had started to fill.

"He killed them all! It was our fault, we never trained them! When we were their age, we survived! We let them be weak and now they're dead! DAMN YOU, KOMUI! DAMN YOU!"

She thrashed away from him like she was going to take off and find her brother and kick him, like she always did when he was foolish. She was at her limit; her feet only glimmered a pathetic faint green and did not invocate. She would have thrown herself down the hillside had Kanda not caught her by the ankle and hauled her back. He threw his jacket over her head as if she were a panicked animal, knowing she would hyperventilate and calm herself down. The last muffled but distinct sensible word he head her say was her piteously angry mewl: "Nii-san!"

He picked her up rested her on his shoulder as he walked. She kicked energetically like a wild doe until he punched her in the stomach to wind her. She was too hurt to waste her energy on hysterics and they had to get away quickly.

Allen was waiting for them. He recognized Lenalee's long legs dangling even though her head was only a black lump bobbing to the rhythm of Kanda's step.

"Lenalee!" he cried and pulled her down into his embrace. The jacket slid off her and her eyes were making mud, tears catching the dirt on her charred face.

Kanda glared at Allen's reproachful look, then brooded over Miranda.

Kanda had not disliked the woman, but was far more sorry that with the science department scattered, they had lost the closest thing they had to a medic. He was right to be.

---

The second war had barreled into them and blindsided them. It had hurt.

Headquarters was gone, its contents of people and holy weapons looted by the other side. The new apprentice exorcists, eager boys and girls who had wanted to be soldiers and heroes in the next war, were gone too. They had been much softer on them than the last generation. It was Komui and Allen's fault. To eliminate the suffering of gullible young souls under the care of exploitive evil generals, the old training system was reformed and apprentices could take on the best, most experienced Exorcists as mentors. These Exorcists in turn became something like honorary generals. Their apprentices were not allowed to fight akuma on their own.

They were all at fault, and all of them had let them die. There was nothing that they could do about it, not even yell at Komui for his irresponsibility and soft-heartedness, because they did not know where he was.

Why did they have to be so harsh about it, after all? The first war had just been won. They had all been jubilant. They had all wanted to celebrate and relax. The Earl had not been active, nor new akuma been sighted since. Thing weren't so desperate that recruits had to be drilled until they were as traumatized as Allen, as nervous as Lenalee, as cruel as Kanda, as brittle as Lavi.

"Spilled milk." Allen had said bitterly, and then cried.

In the chaos the entire science department had gone MIA. When they talked about what they were going to do next, it was often about rendezvousing somehow. Kanda knew they were dead, but didn't bother saying it, even though it was obvious that it would be more productive to locate the Earl for a showdown.

He didn't express his opinion much because it didn't matter. He would be gone soon and then they could waste as much time as they liked.

They had done a good job hiding from the akuma, which were too powerful to think about without getting depressed. Lenalee hypothesized that the Earl had directed them years ago to wait somewhere until the order was lulled into a false sense of security, somewhere where the church had little influence.

"How does that make sense?" Kanda had retorted scornfully at the time. "The church has never been able to enter Edo, but they still knew when the Earl based himself there. Name one place that we couldn't have gotten scouts to, at least."

Lenalee's weary eyes spat fire. "Antarctica!" she snapped irritably.

So, in theory, the akuma went on an all out melee in ANTARTICA for several years, Kanda thought sardonically. Which was why there were now such things as level sevens, which could demolish ancient towers with one blast, and level eights that they could only take down when they all worked together, so long as they were willing to come to the brink of death each time. Meanwhile, the Earl was making new level ones, and as far as they know they were the only resistance, which was why they cowered and hid most of the time.

Kanda never stopped contributing all his brute strength and skill to Lenalee and Allen's plans, but all the same he was a little relieved that it wouldn't be his problem for much longer. They never spoke of the gaiety that they had lost so suddenly, but their lives were horrible now and they all knew it.

Allen and Lenalee went half-mad with worry over their missing friend and drove Kanda plain half-mad before Lavi finally came back. His clothes were a bit tattered but he was otherwise unharmed. He had not been at the Order when it happened. He had been out, not as an Exorcist, but as a Bookman junior, gathering information with Bookman in South America for something unrelated to akuma. Therefore, they had disregarded wearing their uniforms and had not been at high risk for attack. Lavi excused his long absence by saying that he had been cautious about making his way back after he heard the news.

"All over the place, it's chaos." He informed them. "Akuma massacring people. National armies are fighting back. It's really supposed to be too early to tell if they're being effective, but all they have are regular weapons against akuma. You know how that goes."

"Where is Bookman?" Lenalee fretted. "Is he okay?"

In response, Lavi dashed a compact glowing object to the ground. Allen and Lenalee bleakly beheld the raw innocence illuminating their feet.

"Dead." Lavi squatted by the fire to warm himself. "Not the akuma. He was old, you know? Almost ninety. We weren't even running or anything. I woke up one day and he didn't. C'est la vie. Thought I'd at least bring his innocence back, General." He wryly saluted Allen, then stared into the flames. He looked over them at where Kanda was sleeping.

"Tired." Lenalee whispered. "Let him rest."

It was the middle of the day.

"Fuck. Figures." he said.

---

Kanda's hair cords, being made of silk, had been slippery and delicate and easily snapped by the grasping claws of a level three. Kanda had wasted all his energy trying to find some way to make the akuma suffer, but as an exasperated Allen pointed out after were all liberally doused with akuma blood, akuma don't really have feelings as weapons, and the soul ultimately ends up saved anyways.

Lenalee had as much trouble keeping her hair neat and out of the way as Kanda. When things became grim, she unclipped her cross mementos and put them away. She didn't think the akuma cared about ruining accessories, but she didn't want to lose them. Instead, she used a pack of cheap hair rubber bands that had been in the backpack she had grabbed before her room caved in. Battles snapped them one by one. She was down to her last two.

But she knew when she saw Komui again, and none of them could predict when that would be, nothing would make him happier than finding her exactly the way he had left her. To him, the twin pigtails would mean that even though he had left her unmonitored, his sweet little sister had stayed pristinely innocent. His cute lolita, her a woman in her twenties already. She hadn't been able get rid of them while he was with her and now she couldn't get rid of them because he was gone. It was a big bundle of rather stupid contradictions, but that was her big brother all over, and she missed him.

She stared at Lavi's bluntly outstretched hand.

"I need one for Kanda. Please, Lenalee, you only need one when you're fighting."

She nodded numbly and took one off with an inappropriate smile frozen in place. It was childish, but her eyes were stinging out of temper. She would have given it up, something as trivial as a hair band. Lavi didn't have to take on such a pleading tone.

Allen must have said something.

She put it in Lavi's hot and sweaty hand. For the past few days he had rarely left the fire, and now he went straight back to it. She turned her back like it was necessary for scooping up her hair into a single thick bunch at the back of her head. She didn't want Lavi to see her crying.

Recently, Kanda hadn't gotten too far from the fire himself. He had never complained about being cold, but had woken up from his nap almost in the embers, though he had started off in the very back of the cave.

Lavi was finally back. At his stony expression Kanda had known better than to greet him or ask why he had been moved.

"Lavi." He had said coolly to his best friend. "Did you come back to watch me die?"

The first thing that he had lost was the ability to produce body heat. As soon as Lavi had returned, he had placed a hand on Kanda's bandaged chest through his open shirt to shake him awake, ignoring Lenalee's protests. His fingers met a cold as deep as the rock floor's. Kanda's body still eerily rose and fell with the drawn-out breaths of sleep.

Allen helped carry Kanda's body—technically, corpse—to the fire. Lavi rubbed Kanda's limbs and pushed at Kanda's heart with the heel of his palm until his heart started beating again and he regained circulation. Lavi peeled back Kanda's Exorcist jacket to find the "flower" as big and intrusive as an octopus, tentacle-like strokes strangling his arm clear to the elbow.

Kanda's body was voiding his life, one vital function at a time. The morning before his organs had started to dissemble. Lavi hourly pressed on his stomach to check for a mushiness under his skin, but Kanda's abdomen was still relatively firm. His insides seemed to be breaking down at a snail's pace. Kanda did not seem to be any pain. He tranquilly accepted that he was not allowed to move, which was unnerving. He let his fellow Exorcists wait on him hand and foot even though dependence was one of the things he hated the most.

"His nerve endings stopped working." Allen had realized, sickened.

"Maybe the part of brain that processes hissy fits did too." Lavi posited dryly. "Well Allen, Yuu's not a diva anymore. D'ya like him better now, or back when he was useful?"

Lavi, their substitute healer now that Bookman and Miranda were gone, attended to all nurse duties. Allen was out because Kanda refused to like him to his dying moments. Lenalee had no medical experience and the whole thing had her nerves completely shot. At the moment, Lavi was coping with keeping Kanda clean. Kanda's guts were disintegrating with a sloth's haste, but for all their slow melting they produced gobs and gobs of blood.

When Kanda spat, he would convulse and his hair would get all over and stick to his red-stained mouth. Lavi found out the first time he had to do it what a pain it was to wash the vomited blood out of Kanda's loose hair.

"Where is your lotus?" Lavi asked him as he plaited Kanda's hair.

A decade's worth of friendship is a long time to go without ever confessing that the oddly luminescent flower in the on your desk has a greater significance than an interest in new-fangled fiber optics. Kanda had never told Lavi specifically about his curse, but to avoid being stingy he had given Lavi two things: one, that he was sick. Two, that the flower was one of the most important things to his life.

"Che. Mugen was in one corner and lotus in another. There wasn't time to take both."

Lavi sighed. Symbols of bloody violence and a beautiful life, and which one did Kanda choose? Typical.

"Really, Yuu, that should be a sakura flower on your chest."

It was like having a conversation with the probably dead Komui, who had been in the know. Lenalee and Allen had treated him like he would become a monster in order to fight other monsters. Almost too dangerous to approach. When Lavi came back, Kanda was reminded what it was like to be spoken to as a dying man.

"Maybe." Kanda agreed sullenly. "It feels like I only got five petal's worth out of it."

"Musta took the Earl a while to figure out how to really destroy it. It's powerful magic."

"Che. Long enough to baby-sit those two idiots for you. You took too damned long."

"Ah, Yuu. How bad could it have been? Lenalee's such a sweetheart that even you couldn't be mean to her when you were an angst-y teenager. And Allen probably took care of himself just fine, or else he wouldn't have been recognized as a General…even you didn't make that rank."

"And have to take on a couple of brat apprentices? The entire reason why those kids are dead now is because Komui didn't want another Cross Marian, Lavi. And for your information, it sucked while you were gone. Those two are useless."

"Like I said, Lenalee is kind and Allen is strong—"

"No, Lavi." It hadn't been since childhood that Lavi had seen Kanda with such a young-looking face. "It was all useless. And stupid. I felt it coming, and after that it felt like they couldn't do anything that mattered. They were always talking about saving everyone, but Allen and Lenalee couldn't anything that could make me care."

"Yuu-chan." Lavi ended the braid with Lenalee's tie, putting it out of the way. "One thing about you that has always made me absolutely sick is your selfish cynicism. Allen and Lenalee may have never cared, but you never cared to make them."

"Know-it-all bastard. It's more selfish to want pity, isn't it?"

"It's even worse to sulk about not getting any, isn't it?"

"Fuck it. I wasn't doing either."

"Ha. You wanna know what's funny? I already knew that." Lavi said. He lapsed into a good-humored silence for a few moments. "I wasn't making things up about being selfish, though. You didn't even ask me how my mission went."

"So?" the dying man tiredly asked.

"Easy. You're not curious about what's going on with me and that's because you're thinking, 'what do things like missions matter anymore?'"

"So?"

"So, idiot, get your brains together and figure things out. You're dying, not lazy. Like I said, you've always been a selfish cynic and you've never told me anything useful about the lotus. But you're either so slow or unfeeling that you don't even think it's strange that I know so much."

"…So?"

"I went to Komui. He told me everything, and I collaborated with him on and off for years, researching a cure. The trip to South America was the first lead I was investigating, the spring of eternal life. And…then the Order fell. I stayed away from you all so long because I didn't want to give up. I knew the war would take over the entire world again…and that once I came back I wouldn't be able to leave because I'd have to be a hero with Allen and Lenalee. The odds were horrible, and I didn't find anything in the end, but it was my only and last chance to save you."

Kanda closed his eyes in what looked like indifference. He did that often, but for once he seemed genuinely sleepy instead of simply ill. He spoke in that relaxed position.

"…What the hell are you doing, Lavi?"

"What?"

"Che. I may make you sick, but you're making me sick too. You know I hate naïve people more than anything else."

"Yuu."

"Did you think telling me that would make me feel better? I was just frustrated that I would have to die with two useless idiots keeping me company. That's not the case anymore, so what do I care about you failing a mission?"

"Yuu."

"Lavi, when you hit on me, were you serious?"

"Why are you asking things like that now?"

"Why not? Got a better time? Answer it."

"Yes and no…I wouldn't have minded. You're amazingly hot, you know. But it's not like it would've been better that way. It was more fun getting you to say 'no.'"

"So you were never serious. Try asking now. If you feel like asking seriously, I'll consider it seriously."

"You're only saying that because you know you won't have to. Heartless as ever, Yuu. Give it up, you can only be what you are. That doesn't change. Not when you're dying and not when you're dead."

"Damned Bookman." In what might be the kindest action of his life, Kanda rested his hand on Lavi's. "Always have to be so fucking indirect. I'll say it for you, Lavi. 'You are my friend'."

"Yeah? Wow, looks like you smartened up while I was gone…"

"….Please don't cry."

"...You're not supposed to be the one comforting me."

---

Author's Note:

General idea: what do you have, what do you hold?

I started this thinking I'd do a quick two page thing. Then a long one-shot. Then…it just got freakishly out of hand. I had to break it up into two parts. Both parts feature nonspecific character profiling/interaction, but you could say the first's theme is death and friendship with Lavi and Kanda. The second will be life and love with Lenalee and Allen. This is more of a narrative than a tragedy.

I hope it's obvious enough, but here's some notes to clarify just in case. The story roughly parallels real-life history. There are two major wars, only between humans and akuma instead of countries. D. Gray-man takes place roughly during the Victorian era, which is immediately followed by WWI and the boozy, flashy "Roaring Twenties" right afterwards. The dates here are fudged a little bit, obviously, just so I could get all the characters in that young adult age.

Few more notes: If I'm not mistaken, Christianity was outlawed in Japan around this time. An obi is the fancy sash of a kimono. Finding the spring of eternal life was an actual motive for some expeditions into South and Central America.


	2. Hold

Hold

It was only one small thing, but the conversion was amazing. Lenalee was a little less of a lolita-fetish bombshell, a little more like a warrior. For the first time in years, she looked her age.

Sad-looking pigtailed girls brought to mind thing like lost dolls or candy shortages or other trivialities that could be easily remedied. Those who looked on felt confident that they could help and make her smile again. Of course, Lenalee's little things had always been civilians being taken hostage, friends dying, and akuma crashing in through the front door of her home. Imminent-apocalypse type things.

But they had always managed to get her spirits back up, hadn't they? They (and she) had all worked hard to solve her "little things" hadn't they?

But now, clutching her knees, the needles of the pine tree shuddering raindrops on her, her hair was in a practical, hastily tied ponytail. There were lines under her eyes. She looked a young mother who could have lost a young child. It was hard to feel like you could do anything for her.

No wonder Komui had preferred her the other way.

Allen thought all this as he stared at her. Lenalee had once been the idol of the Order, with so many eyes on her miniskirt, her classic beauty, her graceful violence. It had made him cringe. (Not that she'd cared. Her paranoid brother made her out to be a challenge, and anything that was connected to his complex wasn't worthy of her attention.)

Allen was the only one who saw her now.

Lavi came out on breaks but didn't even want to speak to her, the gorgeous girl he had once wanted to date. He stumbled out into the dismal and cold autumn drizzle, looking like Hell. His hair was mussed and the skin under his eyelashes were dusky with sleeplessness, as deep as any of his eyeshadowed girl friends'. Sometimes his eyes were faintly red. But he'd always be smiling sincerely and rub his head ruefully to further dishevel his red locks.

"He's fine." He said to Allen, meaning 'pass it on to Lenalee'. "It's taking a while, probably the Earl's pulling off one petal at a time to prolong the torture…but like you said, he lost his ability to feel pain almost immediately, so right now he's almost bored…"

Allen knew that there was more to it than that. He sensed it, that he could try to fix it, at least. Two best friends, one having to watch the other die and the other having to watch the other watch him. What was happening to Kanda, that was cut and dried and would come to an end. Things couldn't be so easy for Lavi, who was getting worn out from looking after him. All that, but even if he was fed up with being heartsick, he couldn't die from it.

Yesterday, Lavi had quietly asked them to leave. He said he knew it was cold out, but that it wouldn't take much longer. Kanda was getting visibly feeble, and Lavi's look had forbid them from bringing up his pride.

All this, and Allen was still only in love.

"Don't you see Lenalee?" he asked.

She was only a little way off, nestled in the high branch of an evergreen, dew-dropped and comatose.

Lavi tilted his head up, mildly interested as if Allen were pointing out a bird.

Maybe Lavi was tired. Maybe he just didn't care anymore. He had always been fair to both his best friends, and if hadn't been so close to the end, he might have still been. But maybe the twinge of guilt pushed him to it when he saw her, definitely a mature woman and not a little girl, whose grief was heavy, complex, unfixable, and too close to his own.

He turned back to Allen and gave him a strange, crooked smile.

"Yea, she looked just like that when she thought you were dead. Must be the same thing for her all over again."

And he went back without glancing back at either of them again.

Lavi sure did know how to make him jealous.

Allen knew he needed to be more like Lenalee. Whenever she was reminded she wasn't working on her weaknesses, she would consider how to find strength seriously. How upset she was didn't change that.

Allen was the only General in the group. He needed to think things over more carefully, like how he was going to find the Earl and win this war. He had to stop obsessing so much about things that were out of his hands, like recovering Komui and the scientists, who might have been abducted like the time Lulubell invaded headquarters. He should hate himself for not recognizing what really was in his hands, for allowing one of the men with him to accept death. Without a doubt, he was a useless failure of a General.

But he hadn't wanted to make Lenalee fight the Earl with him when they had almost no one (And now they were going to be more shorthanded than before.) He'd clung to not only his friends, but the tears Lenalee shed over her missing brother. He never saw Kanda until Lavi, who had always seen it, made Lenalee see him. Now they all knew and were supposed to be looking at him, although Allen couldn't, and Lenalee was so depressed about it she wouldn't leave her tree.

Always, always, his eyes were on Lenalee.

---

Allen tore off the bottom few inches of his shirt with his activated claw. Kanda was so much taller than him that one of his dress shirts could spare the material more than Allen's. But there was no way to ask either him or Lavi without it being awkward. When Lavi emerged to air out from the stifling heat Kanda still needed, there was a flicker of apology in his expression. But it was minor compared to the intimidating, incomprehensible hope in his eye. Allen didn't approach him.

Allen started sowing. He'd mastered it when he was with Cross because his demonic master had never given money or clothes to his charge. Mana was the one who had taught him, though.

Allen was pushing himself to be less sentimental, so he tried not to connect the memory of his late father with Lenalee. But it was hard training himself out of thinking like an orphan. A skill he learned from when he was with his foster parent, the first time he had felt truly loved, possibly paving the way for him to feel that way once again.

Too wistful. Too exaggerated. And besides, he was too old to consider himself an orphan anymore. Allen hunched over his work. He blew a tuft of white hair away from his scar when it got in the way.

It was a just a gift, that was all. From one friend to another. If Lavi weren't so busy he would have come up with something similar. Maybe Kanda would have even been able to figure it out. It was only an unlucky coincidence that it was those two's fault that she needed cheering up in the first place.

"Allen." Komui had said to him so seriously once that Allen was sure that something important had happened involving the akuma. That was the only time Komui only took on that tone.

"Yes?" Allen, his newest general, had also snapped into business mode. Allen put unnecessary pressure on himself. The only prerequisite to becoming a General was achieving a synchro rate over one hundred percent, and Allen's crown-clown had cinched that since his mid-teens. The title was only a formality. If the last generation of Generals had proved anything, after the promotion honor wasn't expected to replace being selfish, bloodthirsty, or just plain weird.

But they were, undeniably, trump cards. They made new Exorcists strong. They were at such a level that the Noah actually feared their nick-of-time intervention. Allen wanted to feel like he could do that. Turn the tide at any point.

He was a bit too busy to do that now, though, because he was sowing.

"Allen, I trust you to take care of things."

"I'm sorry…sir?"

Komui was solemn and anxious. He acted as if he couldn't remember how to structure English sentences.

At that moment, Allen comprehended fully for the first time that Komui was Lenalee's brother—he had the same sleek dark hair and the same short, dense eyelashes that rimmed the same piercing, thoughtful gaze. Lenalee was not a short girl and her brother shared that trait. His own set of long legs had him towering over Allen. If someone took away of Lenalee's gentleness and feminity, this Komui would be what would be left, and he had Allen pinned under an apathetic scrutiny. It was faintly disturbing.

"Lenalee…and I…we are as used to having to depend on ourselves as much as you. You know, of course, that our parents died when she was very young. I took care of her then. Then she raised herself in the Order."

"Yes." Allen mumbled, dreading what was coming next.

"I think you know Lenalee very well…because you know yourself very well, Allen. And when the time comes, I…" Komui trailed off abruptly. It was like he was almost fighting off helplessness, so he could get his message across uncorrupted. Allen thought he should interject 'I understand, sir' to console him, even though he would panic over Komui's vague wording later. But Komui seemed to return to his wits.

"Even though you both were separated from your care-givers, you learned how to take care of yourselves." Komui said matter-of-factly. "I think it's only people like that who really know how to take care of each other. They are the only ones who don't fall apart if separated. I know it doesn't sound like much, but it's perfect for this world."

"Yes…sir."

His words had hurt in a lot of different ways. Allen had always thought Komui was one of those people who believed—that the world could, and would, throw off some dusty prophecy and proudly live on. And well, didn't that trickle down into thinking they could all individually hope for the future? Allen knew they were soldiers, he knew that Komui was the most of aware of it all as their leader…he couldn't sort out his feelings for the man, his superior and the brother of the person he loved more than anyone else in the world.

So Komui, Lenalee's only family, was saying that he was the right one to take care of Lenalee, because she was the type who could take care of herself and he was compatible with that. Big brother Komui was ready to relinquish responsibility and just let them be together in whatever way they turned out.

But they were also his soldiers. And he knew that after wars, comrades sometimes became survivors.

Komui's soldiers, comrades and whatever else besides. As a couple, or parted, Komui only wished them the best, his sister and the man who loved her.

Allen felt chilled from the light rain. He put his hood up, although it darkened his vision and made it a little harder to see what he was doing. He let his work get longer and longer in his hands and he wondered if he was doing the right thing.

---

"Beansprout!"

Lavi hadn't used that nickname in years. Allen had gathered up all his courage on his eighteenth birthday to tell Lavi he really, really hated it—he thought someone who was an official adult shouldn't have to live with the indignity. Lavi had listened. (He'd half-heartedly hoped Lavi would be able to get Kanda to drop it too, but Kanda had to grow up at his own rate, which was a lot slower. He'd kept it up until a few months after Allen's promotion to General.)

But now Lavi, who was almost default affectionate, was using it the wrong way. He sounded genuinely pissed, which was Kanda's prerogative with the word.

"Are you a moron?" He pointed a shaky finger at what Allen held in his hands.

Allen blinked in confusion. He had jumped when Lavi had come up behind him. The familiar, aggressive shout had reminded him of someone else.

"Lavi, what's wrong? Is Kanda…?"

"What? What about Kanda? He's fine! What's with…" Lavi's jaw snapped shut. He took a deep breath shut his brilliant green eye. When he opened them again, his smile was gentle. He was no longer the intense Lavi that had put Allen's tongue in a bind ever since he had come back. "Naw, you know what Allen? She'll love it."

He dropped his thick white scarf on Allen's head and wound it around. "Guess you coulda used this…but looks like you're about done anyways. Sorry, I know it's cold out here. Hang in there. I'll probably be able to get back to you guys tonight."

Allen guiltily stared at his hands. "Lavi, I'm--"

Lavi stopped him with a raised hand and a grin. "Don't think about those kind of things when you're making something like that. She's gotta be the one on your mind."

Allen remembered what Lavi had said. She likes you, tell her, I'll take her if you're not going to go for it, Allen, put that away, that's for akuma!, you let me hit on her because you know I'm not the one she wants, who else would she choose, go, Lenalee loves Alllleeennn, Lenalee loves Allleeeennn…

He said it all over again with a single jaunty thumbs-up over his shoulder as he ran back. Maybe it was because he took off his scarf, but Lavi's shoulders seemed airy and free as he reported back to his best friend's deathbed. Allen worried that there was something wrong with him—but realized he didn't really care. Seeing Lavi like that again was worth a hundred apologies. The vote of confidence had been extra. A gift.

Slowly, Lavi was starting to see all of them again. And somehow, even though Kanda was this close to finishing up, that was the right thing to do. Lavi knew it.

He knew.

Allen took a breath, tucked Lavi's scarf tighter around himself, and started to climb after Lenalee.

---

"Be careful."

Lavi had been concentrating on not falling asleep by biting his tongue. When Kanda spoke, he jerked, and his reply was muffled from the lingering sting.

"Wha?—nm, Yuu, ow' oo feeleh?"

"Are you drooling?"

"Mm-nh…" Lavi moved his tongue around in his mouth until the numbness wore off. "Sorry, what?"

"Allen and Lenalee are in love."

"Huh? Um, that's okay….he liked her better than me anyways, and it's been a long time already…"

"Baka-usagi, it is not okay. Not for you. They will be stupid, and that will be dangerous."

---

Lenalee glazed-over eyes slid into focus when Allen reached behind her head and took out her ponytail.

"Allen…ow." She said. It was hard to take out rubber bands without breaking a few hairs or catching on some snarls, especially when you weren't the one removing it. Allen winced and flushed.

"I'm sorry."

---

"Yuu-chan, this world has always been dangerous. Do you even know why words like 'stupid' and 'dangerous' exist? They mean--

---

Lenalee stared at the white hair ribbons Allen had made for her and took them from him like he had been carrying a living thing. Her hands wound around them—no one ever exclaimed over her hands, they were brown, and plain, and normal, so why not keep your eyes on her deadly, fluid, sculpted thighs, calves, feet, stylish in jet black. Average length fingers, nails that weren't long or short, palms that shone from wet bark. Allen, who'd once had his heart literally, physically broken once but felt less fear then than right here right now, was too scared to see her expression.

He remembered those hands that had pulled him back, insisting that he not die, had slapped him so hard that his head whipped sideways on his neck, teaching him a lesson about causing friends pain, had…had…maybe slipped into his a few times before, getting Lavi to back off when he got too fresh, needing comfort when Kanda began another mysterious pseudo-death coma, teasing Komui when he went into his one of his fits, or…

Allen also knew those eyes when he was finally ready to face them. He'd often seen Lenalee cry before; there were a lot of things to cry about. She had had prophetic dreams about all of them dying.

Some of them really had died. Some of them were dying. Just once—no, always—Allen wanted her to cry about something else, happy tears or pleasure tears or he-loves-me tears.

He wanted to know what kind they were now.

---

--that people are willing to do more than just survive."

---

Allen wasn't quite as familiar with Lenalee's lips, which casually fell onto his like it was in tangent with the present he hadn't even explained yet. He felt a tremble in her lower lip—wildly hated it in a moment of recognition, knowing that it was all that was left of Miranda getting killed and Bookman passing and Komui missing and Kanda dying and Lavi grieving—everything that wasn't Allen, he wanted gone, just for now.

Allen, who loved her, loved her, loved her, whom she loved. Allen, who was giving her the strength to stop quivering against the kiss she initiated and turn it smooth and powerful and, and,

She completely forgot what else. And that was the right thing to do.

---

Kanda was laughing. Lavi couldn't really say it was him, but…Kanda dying wasn't really Kanda either. This Kanda was a little more like almost-toddler "Yuu," who had always let him call him that without any qualms about a tooth-achingly sweet "-chan" attached until he started hating the nickname at ten and started sticking people for ornery offenses at twelve. This Yuu had laughed himself sick when Lavi collided with a tree branch during a race, until he saw how serious it was, and then held his own shirt against Lavi's eye until help came.

"Baka, did you seriously think that that was a big deal?"

"White is the traditional color for death and funerals in China. Women aren't allowed to wear it in their hair any time else, so--"

"By that logic, you're the one who killed me."

Lavi had been about to punch Kanda in the arm to make him stop, near-death or not, but that halted him.

"Huh?"

"Four. The word for death and four are the same in Chinese with a different accent. There's a lot of superstition around it. When you came back, that made four of us. So…" Kanda giggled, if there was a masculine, mellowed, somewhat threatening way to giggle. "You killed me."

"How do you even know stuff like that?"

Kanda flexed his hand a little, his equivalent of a shrug.

"Lenalee and I were talking about something…comparing characters or kanji or something…"

"You…made casual conversation?"

"Shut up, Lavi."

Lavi wasn't religious, but he didn't know who else to thank that the curse that had given him the worst days of his life was giving Kanda some of his best. Kanda no longer felt pain, he was leaving a war-torn world that would have meant no rest for him ever, and…the very, very last thing to go was his ability to release endorphins. He didn't care that Kanda was technically giddy and light-headed from happy death-hormones. Also technically, Kanda was happy because his friend had made him that way.

"Lavi, you're an idiot." He died with those words and a laugh. Lavi smiled and placed a hand over Kanda's eyes since he had given his scarf to Allen. He didn't know whether Yuu had been consistent to his last moments or not.

---

The white cloth in Lenalee's hair tickled his throat when she rested her head against his chest.

---

The seals swirled around them like a flock of birds circling to land. Wood and fire, Lavi thought, and their symbols glowed red.

He would clear the skies and this stupid misting. It was annoying and could stand to be purged while he was at it.

Deftly turning his innocence in his hands, Lavi slammed down the hammerhead. A fiery dragon writhed out of his hands.Maybe Lenalee and Allen would be mad at him for starting without them. But, he thought wryly, it might be better to let them wrap things up and arrive by themselves. If they saw the light piercing the heavens, they would come. Maybe. But his guess was Kanda wouldn't have minded their absence, considering the circumstances. Lavi didn't.

"See ya, Yuu!" Lavi shouted over the roar of the flames.

Yuu turned into ash and blew away.

---

Allen sleepily thought over what Komui had said. It had seemed so…pessimistic, so pragmatic. Completely out of character for the nutty scientist/romantic. But, he realized now, it had been in keeping with both Komui's hope for their happiness and his respect for all his soldiers. He and Lenalee would live, love, fight together, maybe die, maybe survive, keep on fighting alone as needed. Love made no difference to death, but death made no difference to love. They would, as they always had, understand. Even if war ran its course and one of them became casualties—Allen was Allen and Lenalee was Lenalee.

Love without fear, Komui had meant. This is what you two you will know, because you have already learned it. Even if one of you is left behind, the one you love that lives on is strong. He or she will still fight. He or she will still love.

Keep on walking, Mana had said to him. Allen couldn't help but feel sheepish at his own thick-headedness. It had gone back to his father after all. The first valuable thing he had ever been taught, and it had taken this long to know what to do with it.

Love is for life, but there is love after death. It still mattered. Allen yawned into the top of Lenalee's head. Well, duh, he reminded himself drowsily.

---

Lavi held the winking ball close to his chest. It was pretty warm. He wasn't being sappy, the thing was as crabby as its wielder had been, clinking against its restrictive rings as it bounced around. The Mugen had been extremely active, Lavi reflected, and Kanda had been out of commission for about a week. His innocence was wound up.

He felt kind of sorry for it, although he knew it was insentient. It really, really wanted to destroy akuma, and it had no one to help it with that—it was the closest that one of Kanda's most valued things would come to missing him. Hm. All terribly tragic things considered, it was just violent. Lavi looked down on it affectionately. Yuu might have sacrificed his life for it, but he had picked the object that had resembled him best.

Take that, you stupid lotus, he thought.

"Straight to Allen you go." He told the jittery weapon. Maybe it was too optimistic to think that Allen would be able to carry out his General duties normally…but Lavi felt like being optimistic. He considered dubbing the innocence "Kanda junior," but decided it was just too weird.

Oh. That was right. Lavi wasn't a Bookman junior anymore. He was the official thing.

Meh, he thought. There wasn't any advantage to being with the Church anymore—its remnants were distracted, ineffective, young. An objective view would be impossible.

I can't be uninvolved when I'm one-third the entire fighting force, Panda, he thought. If I die, there goes the whole damn secret history, because who the hell would have thought about taking on an apprentice at this age? Bookman hadn't until he'd shriveled into half his original height.

Lavi had read his work and his predecessors', all of it. It was his property now and its most recent additions were excellent. Bookman had been a perfectly respectable Bookman in that aspect, but somehow he'd completely misjudged his charge to be, what do you know it, responsible. (Play along perfectly with being an Exorcist and then completely deny it as soon as it stopped serving the Bookman cause. That kind of responsible.)

Dammit, if Lavi HAD to be responsible, he chose to be an Exorcist. From now on, the job would mean plenty of life-or-death battling and meager record keeping. Lavi knew there was a high probability that Panda's hope for the future would get whacked by an akuma before getting any meaningful work done.

Lavi felt bad about that, but as no pity was forthcoming for himself, he figured that he'd be able to get over bundles of paper that no one (alive) knew about.

Who else really knew about Allen and Lenalee now, anyways? Yuu'd passed them on like a baton in a relay; Lavi was going to take them to the end. It wasn't everyday a hardass like Yuu played games.

And… well…Panda was gone. No more pressure to rationalize himself to the dark side. How had Lenalee put it…? She didn't care about the world, she cared about HER world. Her only world and his 49th one were synonymous enough.

He'd left Lenalee and Allen on the other side of the hill, so he swung up on his hammer and flew.

---

Lavi spied Allen and Lenalee sitting under a tree, like the old nursery rhyme, curled up together under a blanket. Cute, he thought indulgently, and whipped it off.

Lenalee screamed when the cold air hit her. Lavi immediately plastered his hand against his eye, fighting the urge to leave slits of space between fingers. He lost and generously allowed himself just one, a tiny one.

"God! Sorry, I thought you guys were cuddling!"

"We were!" Lenalee snapped, yanking back the blanket. "That's what you do, after you…you know!

Lavi had had plenty of experience with Allen's blush; his best friend got flustered easy. He'd thought there hadn't been much else to it. To his stupefied, wordless delight, he found out that Allen got red well below his neck.

"Stop looking!" an exasperated Lenalee exclaimed him as she groped for clothes with the arm that wasn't holding the blanket up.

"I wasn't!" Lavi lied.

"Then how…" Lenalee was definitely losing her temper. That strained, wrathful voice he knew so well was creeping up and jabbing at his instinct to run. "Do you know exactly where to hold that out?"

Lavi had innocently collected his scarf from the ground and was offering it to Allen despite covered eyes. Allen,preoccupied with looking as if he were being stewed in tomato juice, made no move to take it.

"Lavi!" Lenalee exploded. "Ooo…I can't kick you right now!"

"Because you're naked?" Lavi suggested.

"YES, because I'm naked!"

"D'ya want me to get your bra? I think I see it on that tree branch."

Lavi find out what it was like to have five fingers the size of javelins curl up into a metallic fist and give him an uppercut worthy of Goliath. Quite like Lavi to forget Allen's innocence could put him into a full-body cast without any indecent exposure.

"Lavi, you…I…I hate you!" Allen managed. (His cheeks were rosy and his free arm thrown protectively around Lenalee. It was terribly adorable of him, and terribly nice of Lavi to notice, considering that Allen's activated claw was giving Lavi grass burns by grinding him against the earth for a good twenty yard's distance.) Lavi was impressed that this situation hadn't summoned demonic poker-face Allen, although if shy Allen didn't get it together soon, Lavi was going to lose all the skin on his back.

While Lavi was pinned and guaranteed distracted, Lenalee made a grab for her uniform hanging from a neighboring bush. She jammed herself into it. With great dignity and speed, she collected the various shed garments as Allen tossed Lavi around like a doll. She discreetly dressed him since he was busy— she left his shirt, because Allen's arm was exceptionally so.

When Lavi was finally able to spread out on his back, smeared green all over, he found a mostly-dressed Lenalee peering down severely at him and a hotly bothered and topless Allen glaring at him. There were tufty white bows at either side of Lenalee's head and Lavi could see a line of darkened blotches of skin on Allen's collar bone.

"What do you have to say for yourself?"

Ah. Exactly the kind of self-righteous, non-blasphemous grade school one-liner he expected from Allen.

Lavi spat out a clump of dandelions. He stretched out an arm, a vibrant orb tucked between his fingers.

"This is for you. Cute hickies." He gasped. "Your hair's pretty." he added to Lenalee.

---

Lenalee blasted through the skies, drawing three colored rings in the space above the clearing in a span of seconds.

"I felt so stupid, ya know." Lavi was telling Allen. "I coulda started looking for that cure any time, but I wanted to play around. And when I finally grew up, things had already gotten to the point that being grown up didn't help anymore."

"I think we're all feeling like that." Allen reassured him. He squinted anxiously after his…his…Lenalee, willing her to land and stop exposing herself to an aerial attack. They needed to know they had an open path and keep going, though.

"I know!" Lavi whacked Allen on the back. "But damn, it was great, wasn't it? And I gotta tell you, as soon as I started being mature about it, it got all depressing. It's gonna take some work, but let's have fun while we're saving the world. Up for it, General Beansprout?"

"Hey! You said you wouldn't call me that anymore!" Allen whirled around from monitoring his…his...

"Your girlfriend's lookin' to land! We better give her some space."

Lenalee slammed into the ground, heels pointed down. Her familiar pigtails flew up along with their new decorations.

"All clear!" she proclaimed breathlessly. A length of red ribbon dangled out of her pocket. She drew it out and gave it to Allen. "I think you left this in that tree."

"It was in a tree? That's pretty kink-"

Lenalee nonchalantly roundhouse kicked him so fast that she whistled.

"Onwards, General!" Lavi shouted later, hanging off his hammer and ignoring his black eye.

"Lavi, stop being silly." Lenalee scolded. She reached for Allen's waist. He raised his own hands to touch hers resting there, but she deftly hefted him up, testing his weight for a few seconds. Lavi grinned at his priceless, crestfallen expression. Lenalee dropped him after a moment.

"Oof. You're heavier than when you were a kid. I'd like you carry you, but I might drop you. Better ride with Lavi, Allen. Be careful."

She took his face in her hands (she did have to reach up) and gave him a kiss full on the lips as Lavi whooped.

By the time they were up in the air, it was already sunset.

Allen behind him was engaged in a unique version of hand holding with Lenalee, who was having a difficult time matching her pace with Lavi's innocence. She kept getting too far ahead and would stop for them, but then they would shoot forward, bypass her, and then she'd have to catch up. Every time they lined up for a split second, they would extend their arms and grab hands. Catch and release. Sometimes Lenalee would do something fancy, duck under and over, and her fingers would flicker on Allen's hair, his shoulder, his face.

"Oi! If he falls, you're going to have to catch him!" Lavi yelled.

---

Allen smelled the moss on her skin, heard the catch in her voice as she said his name. These days he knew her hands far better than those legs everyone had worshipped, which had really been just her skin-tight boots, striking black stockings that had tapered to knife-like heels. They'd been enthralled with their mystique, dark sacred relics, and Lenalee had been like a beautiful, charming shrine for them, the rumored Heart of Innocence.

But Allen now knew what her legs were like bare, flesh-toned, too delicate and soft to be weapons, ending in ten curled-up toes. They matched her hands, a warm olive color. Those whacked Lavi in the back of the head when he teased Allen too much and pointed at dots on towns that was rumored to feature a resistance group headed by an eccentric Asian man.

They gripped his paler ones at every opportunity.

Lavi had helpfully volunteered to patrol for the night, although he could have done it with a bit more class by not winking suggestively as he left. He was a ways off, so high up that he couldn't possibly see them through the forest treetops.

"Allen." She, not a soldier, pressed her cheek to his. He laid a kiss on her heart, its steady thud the sound of his own feet walking forward.

End.

---

Author's Note:

I am SO done with this fic…yee-ah, it was supposed to be optimistic from the beginning but I was told it got sad when Kanda started to die. Oops, hope this fixes it. Um. World War II is in progress. Follow the (failed) allegory and the result should hypothetically be the same. Yes, the apocalypse is inconclusive. Let it be.

Can you believe that this whole fic came to me when in half-sleep and wondering if Lenalee would have any issues with white hair ribbons? I'm Chinese, so I can't seem to resist letting some of those traditional beliefs leak into my writing. Like I said, it got out of hand, and I had to try to wring some coherence out of this second part. Erg, sorry if it disappoints and is lamely sappy, I didn't have much planned for it. I will try to never let myself write a sweet, non-screwed up romance again.

Thanks for reading.


End file.
